The lie in the Intrelok

Here are facts - as opposed to the lies in the Malay novel Interlok. We Indians did not come to this country because the raods were paved in gold.

This is an excerpt from an article titled Birds of Passage: Migration of South Indian Labour Communities to South-East Asia; 19-20th Centuries, A.D. by Adapa Satyanarayana.

The acreage under rubber increased in Malaya from 50,000 in 1900 to 5,43,000 in 1910. The rubber plantations heavily depended on kangany-recruits and the government also adopted a policy of supporting kanganis. The increasing number of kangany- recruits revealed the fact that kangany became the mainstay of labour recruitment for rubber plantations. From 1903 to 1906 their number doubled every year in 1903-1858, in 1904-3375, in 1905-7729, in 1906-1977. The kanganis themselves worked on the plantations as foreman and even as labourers of some influence and standing. Although not all of them were foremen, a considerable number of them were also elderly labourers who had worked in the plantation for some time. They were said to be “generally of good caste and had preferably to be heads of large families and persons of influence among others and subordinate castes in the village…. The kangany had to be a person who could command the respect of as wider a sector of the community of his village and district as possible”. Available evidence suggests that the kangany, had played a role in the countryside, which was a combination of patron, patriarch, businessman, ambassador, self-appointed welfare officer etc. A contemporary newspaper wrote thus:

“The kanganis are easily believed by the simpletons because he…shines like a tin-god clothed in gorgeous velvet coat and lace turban and bedecked with costly jewels in his ears and his fingers… he is passed by all as real and sympathetic gentleman. He shows he does not care for money and gives any amount to his newly acquired friends… He takes an interest in all matters concerning the welfare of the village or town he resides in … Soon he becomes popular with all. and is generally invited to all social and public functions. His gold attracts like magnet everybody, and his position is envied by many. He instills in the mind of these ignorant seekers of fortune that Malaya… (Is an) EI Dorado… where they could become very rich in the course of an (sic) year or two. Thus the ignorant people of the village are enticed away from their homes. Husband and wife are separated, young girls kidnapped… (and) boys are spirited away from their… parents…”
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The kangany system of labour recruitment right from the beginning was defective and the kanganis indulged in coercion, malpractice and other abuses. The principal irregularities noticed during the course of Kangany recruitment included: Kidnapping minors and catching recruits at the weekly shanties (markets), seducing youngemen with the promise of getting them married in the colony (Malaya), working upon the petty domestic quarrels between son and father, husband and wife etc and inducing them to leave their home, matching strangers as brothers, father and son, brother and sister and husband and wife to avoid legal hurdles, misrepresenting the nature of the wok and the rates of wages on the estates, substituting one person in the place of another duly passed by the village munsiff and forging the village Munsiff’s signature on licenses, taking recruits as ordinary passengers or as non-emigrants, getting persons from professional recruiters, brokers and hotel- keepers, getting the recruits passed by the munsiff of a village other than that of the recruits, not taking the recruits before the village munsiff at all but getting the munsiff’s signature forged in the licence. There were also many instances where the kanganis colluded with the corrupt village officials and enticed ignorant villagers to emigrate. The monetary inducements/commission/premium offered by estates to kanganis did tempt them to recruit labour unlawfully through fraudulent methods.

The UMNO led government uses such flawed literary expression to build up the negative stereotypes and builds the edifice on which they hope to sit their ketuanan melayu. Let us throw these lies ourselvesout clear from our minds and come into the light.